This compilation volume contains three stories about Hercules Quick, two of which have been published before. They are: Ask Hercules Quick, The Magnificent Hercules Quick and How’s Tricks, Hercules Quick?
For those not familiar with Hercules, he is a human boy who lives with his Aunt Alligator on the middle floor of an apartment block. Above them lives the multi-generational Elk family and on the floor below is Professor Calimari, who despite his name, is an octopus. Queen Claude lives in the dark, scary cellar and the Turtle brothers, Mike and Herbert, live on the roof.
Hercules has seen a box of magic tricks in the window of the local toy shop. He desperately wants it but has no money so he sets out to earn some pocket money doing odd jobs for his neighbours, asking 10 cents per job. It is slow going and by page 191 he has only earned $1.35 from 12 jobs. Some neighbours paid him extra and he also acquires a bonus pet tadpole, Sylvie, from the professor.
Hercules’ efforts to earn money and not just have the box of tricks handed to him by his aunt is a great lesson for young readers, told with humour and clever vocabulary. Andrew Joyner’s illustrations are a delight, with great facial expressions on a variety of creatures.
Hercules Quick’s Big Bag of Tricks is a hilarious read for newly independent readers who have progressed from early chapter books.
Reviewed by Lynne Babbage
Age Guide 7+
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ursula Dubosarsky was born in Sydney, Australia in 1961, the third child in a family of writers. From the time she was first able to read, at age six, she wanted to be a writer. She wrote stories and poems and puppet plays all through primary and high school.
After finishing school, Ursula went to Sydney University to study English and languages, including Old Icelandic, Latin and Greek. When she graduated, she moved to Canberra to work in the public service, and in the evenings after work she wrote a time slip adventure called ‘Zizzy Zing’.
She then spent a year traveling, meeting her Argentinean husband, Avi, while working on a kibbutz in Israel. They married in London, then returned to Australia to live, where their daughter Maisie was born.She wrote a comic children’s novel, High Hopes, which she sent as an unsolicited manuscript to Jane Godwin at Penguin Books in Melbourne. The book was accepted.
Since this time, Ursula has published many more novels as well as a number of books for younger children, and has won several prestigious national literary prizes. She lives in Sydney with her family – Avi, daughter Maisie, and two sons, Dover and Bruno.
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